Carolina Lee

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE BARNWELLS' CARRYALL

Aunt Angie La Grange descended from the Barnwells' carryall in front of the station platform at Enterprise, and tapped on the window of the telegraph-agent's box.

"How late is the train from Savannah, Barney, son?"

Mr. Mazyck sauntered out.

"Only about three hours to-day, Aunt Angie. Expecting the folks?"

"Only Peachie. Mrs. Winchester and Carolina went on down to Jacksonville on business. Did you ever see such a girl?"

"I never did. She scares me 'most to death. I'd like to marry her, Aunt Angie, but what could I-what could any man do with such a wife?"

"She'd make any man rich. Moultrie says she goes so far ahead of him in her ideas of business, he can't even keep her in sight."

"Oh, any man has got to make up his mind to take her dust!" laughed Barnwell.

"Are you in earnest about marrying her, Barney?"

"Of cou'se I am! Aren't all the boys? Isn't Moultrie?"

A shade darkened Aunt Angie's face.

"You know, son, that Moultrie will never marry unless-"

"Exactly! Unless! Well, there's a heap of unlesses which may he'p him to change his mind. And maybe Miss Carolina is one of them."

"I'd be proud to have him win her, but, as you say, all the boys are in love with her, here and in Charleston, and now she has been to Savannah, I suppose they will follow suit, and-"

"Poor Jacksonville!" sighed Barnwell.

Mrs. La Grange laughed.

"We haven't had such a belle in South Carolina in many years," she said. "Before the war-" and she sighed.

Barney laughed unfeelingly, and Mrs. La Grange continued:

"How about Araby, son? Are you going to sell her to Carolina?"

"Indeed I am not, Aunt Angie. I'd give her to Miss Carolina before I'd sell her to anybody else; but, to tell you the truth, I'd about die if I had to part with that mare! She's human. Sound as a dollar and not a trick of any kind. That nigger horse-trainer is a magician with animals. I'm blest if I don't believe he'll teach Araby to talk before he quits. And she whinnies if she even passes him in a crowd."

"Carolina wants her worse than anything in the world."

"Well, she can just go awn wantin'," said the usually gallant Mr. Mazyck, ungallantly. "If I'd give Araby to her, I'd lose both my mare and my sweetheart."

"Somehow or other I can't help thinking that Carolina will get that horse in spite of you. Barney, do go and see what time it is! This is the third time I've been down here to wait for this mean train!"

"Yonder she comes now. Only three hours and fifteen minutes late. That's not so bad, Aunt Angie. When she tries, she can tardy herself up a heap mo' than that!"

Mrs. La Grange anxiously scanned the shabby coaches for a sight of her daughter's blooming face. Peachie jumped from the car steps and ran to her mother's arms. They kissed each other like two lovers who had been parted for years.

"Have you had a pleasant week, darling baby?" asked her mother.

Peachie's pink cheeks paled and her face clouded over.

"No, I haven't," she whispered, hurriedly, "but I don't want anybody but you to know. Don't let Barney ask me. Let's hurry."

Mrs. La Grange led the way to the borrowed carriage with a sinking heart. Aside from two visits to her aunt in Charleston, this was the only time Peachie had ever been away from home. And now to have this invitation to visit Savannah, given the year before and anticipated all this time, turn into the failure which Peachie's face indicated, was almost as great a disappointment to Mrs. La Grange as to the girl herself.

In the carriage, where Old Moses could not hear them, the mother anxiously awaited the story.

"Begin at the beginning and don't skip a word. We've two good hours before us with nobody to interrupt."

"Well, you know how happy Carolina was at the prospect of taking me to a fine hotel like the De Soto, and how lovely my clothes were, and how pleased Cousin Lois was at the prospect of seeing her old friends there? Well, people called, of course, – none of the girls, though, – and Mrs. General Giddings, who is the leader of Savannah society, at once asked Cousin Lois to be a chaperon at the Valentine Ball. John Hobson invited me, and Jim Little asked Carolina, and, do you know, it was the first time in all her life that Carolina had ever been to a ball with a man! She says she always went with a chaperon and met her partners at the dance. And she wanted to do that in Savannah, but Mrs. Giddings assured her that it was all right, and so she did.

"Oh, mother, I wish you could have seen us that night! You know how I looked, but Cousin Lois wore a black satin brocade, studded with real turquoises and blue ostrich feathers woven into the goods. And, with all her size, she looked perfectly lovely. Carolina wore a white Paris muslin over white silk, with every flounce trimmed with real lace. Her hair looked as if she only had one pin in it, it was so loose and fluffy and-well, artistic is the only word to describe her. She looked like a fairy princess. It began in the dressing-room."

"What began?

"Well-Savannah began!" cried Peachie. "I never heard of such things happening to our girls when they go to Atlanta and Columbus and Augusta and Macon, while as for Charleston! – well, I needn't defend Charleston manners to you, mother!

"Not a soul spoke to us, although everybody knew we were strangers and everybody knew who we were, for of course it was in the papers, – such distinguished arrivals as Mrs. Rhett Winchester and Carolina Lee! But not a girl came near. They hollered and joked among themselves, and somebody would whisper to two or three, then the whole roomful would scream like wild Indians, and once one of the boys came to the door and called to them to hurry up, and one girl screamed back, 'Shut yo' big mouth!' and the rest fairly yelled with approval.

"Then one girl was just going out with her bodice all gaping open, and Carolina stepped up to her as sweetly as if she had been received with perfect politeness and asked if she mightn't fasten it. The hooks were half off, so Carolina took a paper of pins and fairly pinned that girl into her clothes, – her waist and skirt didn't meet. She accepted all this help, thanked her, and went out, leaving us all alone. Then our boys came and took us down to the ballroom, and, if you will believe it, mother, not a girl came near us or asked to be introduced or introduced a single boy! Not even the girl that Carolina had helped. I looked at Carolina to see if she noticed it, but her face was as calm as it always is. Her colour, however, was a little less than usual at first.

"We noticed that things sort of dragged at first, and soon we found out what it was. An English yacht was in the river, and its owner, Sir Hubert Wemyss, a young man only about thirty, was expected, and all the girls were trying to save dances for him, and all the boys were trying to get the choice ones.

"The first dance I didn't watch Carolina, because I had heard that Jim Little was a good dancer, but, after it was over, I saw him take her to the door and she went up to the dressing-room. I made John stop near him, and I asked him what was the matter. 'Oh, I stuck my foot through the lace of her dress, and she's gone to be sewed up. Say, Miss Peachie, that girl can't dance! I never saw a Yankee that could!'

"Well, mother, I could scarcely believe my ears! The conceit of that raw Southern boy, who never had been outside of his own little town in the whole of his life, except to go duck-shooting in the swamps, to presume to criticize Carolina's dancing!"

"What did you say to him, sweetheart?"

Aunt Angie's cheeks were as red as any girl's. She sat bolt upright in the borrowed carriage, in her cheap print dress and cotton gloves, looking like an empress. The proudest blood in South Carolina flowed in her veins and she had the spirit of her State.

"I said, 'Are you sure, Mr. Little, that the fault was all hers?' And he laughed and said, 'Well, the Savannah girls never find fault with my dancing, Miss Peachie!' 'Oh,' I said, 'if such criterions have stamped their approval on you, Mr. Little, of course there is no more to be said!' He didn't see the sarcasm at all, – he seems a trifle dense. So we waited for Carolina, and when she came back, I saw that her dress was ruined, but she had managed to hide it pretty well, and her manner was just as sweet to that man as if he had been fanning her, and we all four went back to Cousin Lois.

"The next dance we changed partners, Jim Little taking me and John Hobson taking Carolina. Now John is said to be the best dancer in Savannah, so I kept an eye on them, but they didn't do very well. Carolina's colour began to rise and her eyes began to grow that purplish black-you remember? Oh, she looked so beautiful! But she wasn't enjoying herself, and she stopped near me to rest. Then I heard John say, 'You dance more like a Southern girl than any Yankee I ever knew!' Think, mother! That was twice she had been called a Yankee before we had been there an hour. A Lee of South Carolina! Her cheeks just grew a little warmer and she lifted her chin a little higher, but didn't correct him-just said, 'I suppose you intend that for a compliment, Mr. Hobson?' 'I should say I did!' he said. 'I never saw a Yankee girl who could dance in all my born days!' 'How do you account for that?' asked Carolina, in just as sweet a tone, mother, as she always uses. Me? I was just boiling! I was ready to cry!"

Her mother pressed her hand. Aunt Angle's own lips were trembling with indignation.

"'Oh,' the fool said, 'I reckon they don't get as many chances to dance as our girls do!' Well, that saved me. I began to laugh and I laughed until I nearly went into hysterics. I had to excuse myself and ask Jim to get me some water!"

"Did Carolina laugh, too?" asked Mrs. La Grange.

"Well, she smiled, and I knew from that, that she was only holding herself in.

"The next was a Lancers. Carolina danced with Rube Bryan. He is very tall and from the first he tried to get fresh with Carolina. I was in the same set dancing with John again. And I want to say right here that I never saw such unladylike and ungentlemanly dancing in all my life. Why, in Charleston the chaperons would have requested the whole dance to be stopped. They wouldn't have permitted such hootings and yellings, such jumps and shouts. Girls yelled at each other across the whole hall-just like negroes. 'Go it, Virgie!' 'Shake a foot, Nell!' In the ladies' chain the boys jerked the girls so that one girl in our set was thrown down and her wrist sprained."

"I was getting frightened and I could see that Carolina was on the verge of leaving the set. Then she seemed to brace herself, for Mrs. Winchester had left the line of chaperons and was making her way down to where we were dancing. And mother, there was rage in her whole bearing. She just looked as if Carolina were being insulted by dancing with such rowdies. But Carolina gave her a look and she did not interfere. She stood there, however."

"Did anything happen, Peachie?" asked Mrs. La Grange, unable to wait for the sequel.

"Yes, mother, it did. I believe those girls had dared him to, because he waited until the very last, then he lifted Carolina off her feet clear up into the air, and landed her in front of Mrs. Winchester with a deep bow. Everybody laughed and screamed for a minute, then something in the attitude of both Mrs. Winchester and Carolina made them hush. Cousin Lois's voice was low, but you could hear it all over the room.

"'Young man,' she said, 'your name is unknown to me, but let me say to you that you are not a gentleman!'

"What happened then?" cried Mrs. La Grange.

"Mrs. Giddings, of course. She always says the cutting thing. 'You are perfectly right, Lois,' she said, 'the man is a nobody. We expect such manners from nobodies. Not that the somebodies are any better, if this dance is a sample. This is my first appearance. Rest assured that it will be my last. We Giddings don't chaperon barn dances!'

"That, from Mrs. Giddings, seemed to sober them. They all moved away leaving Rube Bryan bowing and scraping and trying to square himself. Cousin Lois simply waved him aside as if he were a piccaninny. She asked Carolina if she wanted to go home. Carolina hesitated a minute, then she lifted that chin of hers and said, 'No; a Lee cannot be driven from a ballroom by rudeness. Just let me go and put on my truth!"

"Bless the child!" cried Mrs. La Grange, who was as excited as a spectator at his first horse-race. "Bless her! There is pride! There is what the French call 'race'! And to see the dear putting on the armour of her religion even in a ballroom!"

"Mother, Carolina's religion helps her in everything. Why, she just stepped out of sight behind a row of palms. She went to a window and reached up one arm and leaned her head against it. With the other hand she drew back the curtain and looked up at the stars. I put my arm around her and she said, in a low, distinct voice. 'The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.' 'And mother, it made the tears come to my eyes. To think of my beautiful Carolina, with nothing but love in her heart for the whole South, to come home to us and be treated so rudely that she had to appeal to God to help her to get through something which ought to have been only a pleasure to her!"

"I know, my dear baby," said her mother, whose own eyes were suspiciously bright, "but I rather imagine that to a girl who has seen the best society that Europe and America have to offer, a dance with a lot of Savannah boys and girls could not be considered in the light of much of a treat."

"I know it, mother. Yet Cousin Carol's manners are so perfect that she never lets you suspect that. She enters into everything with such love."

"That is her religion," said Mrs. La Grange.

"Oh, that reminds me. She went on talking aloud as we stood there. She said, 'I must remember that the vesture of truth is my raiment. I must stand sentinel at the door of my thought and not allow error to enter it. And the way to keep error out, is to pour love in. Love! Love! Love! That is the way to meet them. Father-mother-God! Help me to love mine enemies!' Oh, and mother dearest, by that time I was weeping, but Carol's eyes were quite dry. 'Don't cry, little girl,' she said, 'I don't any more, for I have got beyond the belief that religion is an emotion. It is too real-too lasting. Emotions die out.' And a little light seemed to dawn for me-just as I have seen clouds break on a dark night and a single star shine through."

"Then did you go back?" asked her mother, after a pressure of the hand to show that she understood. There was a singular bond between these two.

"Yes, she turned and pressed my hand just as you did then, with such understanding, and her face was fairly shining, but with such a different radiance. 'Come, Peachie, darling! faithful little comrade. You would not have been one of the disciples who slept and left their Master to pray alone, would you? Well, I have conquered my little moment of error. Now let's go back.' 'And show them how South Carolina faces her foes,' I said. 'Wouldn't it be better to go back and show them how South Carolina can forgive?' she asked."

"Bless her heart!" murmured Mrs. La Grange. "I know how a young girl feels to be mistreated at a ball."

"Yes, but wait. The grandest, glorious-est thing happened. Just as we came from behind the palms who should be bowing to the chaperons but the handsomest man I ever saw in my life. Tall, dark, distinguished-looking, with one white lock of hair and all the rest black as a coal. He has a slight limp from a wound at Magersfontein, but it only distinguished him the more and doesn't interfere with his dancing a bit. Well, when he saw Carolina, his face lighted up and he said, 'Oh, Miss Lee, how awfully jolly to see you again! To tell the truth, I had half a mind not to come, after all I had promised, and I wanted to get out of it the worst way until I heard that you were to be here. Then I couldn't get here fast enough.' Well, mother, even if every girl there hadn't suddenly found that side of the room strangely attractive, his voice has a carrying tone, and-well, I wish you could have seen those girls. They looked as though they had been slapped in the face."

"As they deserved!" said Mrs. La Grange, grimly.

"Then the band struck up a two-step and he turned to Mrs. Winchester and asked her if she would save her first square dance for him, but she said she wasn't dancing. So then he asked Carolina. She gave me a little look which meant that I could have him next, and then! Well, I've seen dancing all my life, but I never saw anybody dance as those two did. It was like the flight of swallows. So graceful, so dignified, so distinguished, and yet so spirited. Carolina dances like a breeze."

"I can imagine just how she dances," cried Mrs. La Grange, excitedly. "Go on, child!"

"Well, the funniest sight of all was Cousin Lois. She drew her chin in and waved her fan and puffed herself out for all the world like our turkey-hen. I could have laughed."

"I know just how she felt-just how I should have felt in her place if you had been treated as Carolina was. Then did he dance with you?"

"Yes, then he danced with me. Then with Carolina again. Then she said to him, 'Now, Sir Hubert, I want you to meet some of these pretty girls, but as I don't know them myself, I shall ask Mr. Little to take you around and introduce you to the brightest of them, so that you will take away with you the best impression of our Southern girls.'"

"Oh, Peachie! I couldn't have done that!"

"Nor I either, mother. I just couldn't. So Jim started to take him, but he said, 'Just wait a moment.' Then he came to me and took-"

"I hope he took more than one!" cried Mrs. La Grange, jealously.

"He took seven, mother. And in the German he favoured me until-"

"That was too many, Peachie. You ought not-"

"I know, dearest honey mother. I ought not to do heaps of things I do do, but after all, what do I care what those people think of me? All they can say is that I flirted with him-"

"Or that he flirted with you," laughed her mother.

"Oh, yes, they will say that, never fear. And yet-"

"And yet what, my darling? Here we are at home."

"And yet he took Cousin Lois and Carolina to Jacksonville on his yacht, and he asked me to go, but I said I had to get back to you, and he was with us all the rest of the time we were there-"

Her mother turned and looked at her.

"And he is coming to see me on his way back."

As Mrs. La Grange stepped from the carriage with the air of a queen descending from her chariot, she put her arm around her daughter's waist and said:

"I think I have to be proud of a dear, generous little girl whose loyalty caused an otherwise pleasant week to be spoiled."

Peachie's cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.

"It wasn't quite spoiled, mother dear. Oh, honey, he is the handsomest man and the best dancer! Just wait till you see him!"

CHAPTER XVIII

A LETTER FROM KATE

"DEAREST CAROLINA: – Great news! Three pieces of it. First, I have turned Christian Scientist! Second, Rosemary Goddard is married to the Honourable Lionel Spencer! Third, daddy is so tickled over all that you have done, as you may have suspected from his letters lately, that he is going down. He will take the car, and Noel and Mrs. Goddard, mother, and I are coming, too! Don't bother about accommodations. We will switch the car to a siding and live in it. We may all have to go to Charleston and Jacksonville, so that you and Peachie and a handy man or two had better get ready for a rip-roaring old time, for we are going to make Rome howl. Noel wants to go to Ormond for the automobile races. He has entered his machine. I named it for him, – 'The White Moth,'-don't you think that's a dandy name?

"Now to go back to the really important thing. I've wanted to be a Scientist ever since I found out that it wasn't a drag-net to catch all the cranks in the world, as I at first supposed. I found that out in two ways. One, by knowing a lot of you who were not in the least cranks. The other, by seeing what a lot of cranks there are left! Yet all the time I was hating myself and struggling against the compelling influence. Did you ever drag a cat across the carpet by the tail? Well, that is just about the easy, gliding gait I used to reach Christian Science!

"Still, you'll never guess who influenced me most. Not you nor that heavenly Mrs. Goddard nor the wonderful cures I've seen. Nuh! Guess again. Old Noel! Yes, sir. Old skeptical Noel! Brought up for a Catholic, too. Wouldn't that freeze you? Well, think si to myself, think si, 'if old Noel can see good in it, and he's the best all-round sport, man of the world, and gentleman I know, it's time little Katie got aboard.' So I just climbed on the raft without saying a word to anybody, expecting everybody to raise Cain, but, to my astonishment, daddy was as pleased as Punch, and he and mother go to church with me every Sunday. What do you say to that?

"At the ball the Goddards gave for Rosemary just before she sailed, I was doing a two-step with Noel, and I saw a dandy girl, whose gown simply reeked of Paris, it was so delicious. She was dancing with a corking looking man, and, as we stopped near them for me to get a better look at her clothes, I heard her say, 'Are you going to communion at the Mother Church?' and he said, 'I never miss it. It is the treat of my whole year!' I looked at Noel and he looked at me.

"'Noel,' I said, 'Did I hear aright? They weren't betting on a horse-race in cipher, were they?' 'No,' sez he, giggling, 'they were not. They are Christian Scientists, and they are now talking about an incorporeal God.' 'In a ballroom,' murmurs I to myself. 'Noel,' I said, in a weak voice, 'Take me out and lay me softly under a pump and bring me to. I am too young to go dotty without any warning.' But, instead of that, we joined them and Noel introduced us to each other, and we finished the two-step talking about how hard it was to change from our old idea of a God who was so much like a man that we had to flag Him and shout out our prayers to be sure to get His attention. I used to feel as if I were on the floor of a convention, trying to catch the Speaker's eye.

"But I want to ask you two things that I can't quite get up my nerve to ask Mrs. Goddard. What did you do about praying while changing your idea of a personal, corporeal God to one of spirit? Why, Carolina, I've lost the combination! I feel as though I were praying through a megaphone out of an open window. My prayers don't seem to strike against anything. Will I get over this feeling in time? It is only fair to state, however, that even this queer hit-or-miss method brings answers which my most frantic screams for help and my most humble and dependent clinging to the robe of my personal God never did. So you can just bet that I'm going to stick to the new method, whether I ever understand it or not, because it does deliver the goods. Am I right or wrong? I want to know.

"Now, I did tackle Mrs. Goddard on this point. I feel a perfect wretch to mention it, but the fact is, I simply cannot endure the name of Mrs. Eddy! Every time they mention 'Science and Health' in church, they say, 'By Mary Baker G. Eddy.' Every time they give out a hymn that she wrote, they say, 'By Mary Baker G. Eddy.' And every time they do it, my blood boils and my face burns and I grab my hymn-book until-well, I split a pair of gloves nearly every Sunday!

"The conceit of that woman! Suppose she has given the world a new religion, – why not let us show our gratitude spontaneously. Why need she say such conceited, sacrilegious things in her book? She throws hot air at herself indirectly in every chapter. It reminds me of a page in Roosevelt's 'Alone in Cubia.' I counted sixty-three I's on one page in that book, until I felt like the little boy who said to his father, after an evening of war experiences, 'Papa, couldn't you get any one to help you put down the rebellion?'

"I don't believe, unless my feeling changes, that I shall ever join the church while its by-laws remain as they are. I will work for the cause, and be diligent and faithful and studious, but I disapprove of a church being such a close corporation and for one finite, human being to possess such power as Mrs. Eddy holds, and holds with such pertinacity and deliberate love of power.